Service Method Calls and Setter Injection

Tip

If you’re using autowiring, you can use #[Required] or @required to automatically configure method calls.

Usually, you’ll want to inject your dependencies via the constructor. But sometimes, especially if a dependency is optional, you may want to use “setter injection”. For example:

// src/Service/MessageGenerator.php
namespace App\Service;

use Psr\Log\LoggerInterface;

class MessageGenerator
{
    private $logger;

    public function setLogger(LoggerInterface $logger): void
    {
        $this->logger = $logger;
    }

    // ...
}

To configure the container to call the setLogger method, use the calls key:

To provide immutable services, some classes implement immutable setters. Such setters return a new instance of the configured class instead of mutating the object they were called on:

// src/Service/MessageGenerator.php
namespace App\Service;

use Psr\Log\LoggerInterface;

class MessageGenerator
{
    private $logger;

    public function withLogger(LoggerInterface $logger): self
    {
        $new = clone $this;
        $new->logger = $logger;

        return $new;
    }

    // ...
}

Because the method returns a separate cloned instance, configuring such a service means using the return value of the wither method ($service = $service->withLogger($logger);). The configuration to tell the container it should do so would be like:

Tip

If autowire is enabled, you can also use annotations; with the previous example it would be:

/**
 * @required
 * @return static
 */
public function withLogger(LoggerInterface $logger)
{
    $new = clone $this;
    $new->logger = $logger;

    return $new;
}

You can also leverage the PHP 8 static return type instead of the @return static annotation. If you don’t want a method with a PHP 8 static return type and a @required annotation to behave as a wither, you can add a @return $this annotation to disable the returns clone feature.

New in version 5.1: Support for the PHP 8 static return type was introduced in Symfony 5.1.